Brothers in Arms
by The Huntress1
Summary: Explores some of the ideas put forth in Batman #700. Damian Wayne must put aside his personal history & prejudices to embrace his role in more than one Batman's life.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: This follows, admittedly loosely, the events of ROTJ. Naturally Damian is not a BB character but I endeavored to give some life to some of the ideas posited as a possible future in the books. I do not, in any way, own any Batman characters nor do I claim any rights, those honors, such as they are, go to Bob Kane**

He'd prescribed to a very precise life. Following his father's patterns like the checkerboard layout of the manor's kitchen floor. There at that black tile beneath the farmer sink was the year at the Fessenden School before he'd been expelled for breaking Sal Vincent's nose with the heel of his hand. He still remembered the blackness spreading through the handkerchief and down the boy's wrist, pooling in the woolen elbow of his sweater. Damian knew what mercy was, that's why he didn't kill him. His version of an early Christmas gift.

The time waiting in the headmaster's office had been a practice in tedium, the voices of teachers and then the headmaster wafting through his ears like static. They were frowning and the telephone kept ringing. Eventually Pennyworth arrived to fetch him and sign the necessary paperwork. Then there was the ride to the station and that long night on the train. Pure boredom.

That ivory white tile before the refrigerator was like that following summer on the farm with Grayson and that woman who he charitably referred to as "the Tramp."

Father's little mistress. He knew next to nothing about her background but no amount of polish and rub would erase the grit or grease of poverty in his eyes. He did admire her though, grudgingly. And she didn't pretend to like him, but she didn't taunt him or try to win him over. She lent Grayson the farmhouse and left them to their own devices. Grayson, the circus boy, just as poor as the rest…but endlessly, fathomlessly patient. He became that…figure, that approachable influence that father never was. Father was a beacon, a light on that proverbially far away shore. Grayson was there in the morning with stubble and trousers over a union suit, ready to teach and talk. He never glowered or fumed.

That summer came and went and Grayson moved on, back to Blüdhaven, and Damian managed to remain at father's alma mater Rumsey Hall for a mere two months before transferring to Rectory. Rectory was Oliver III and Nicholas Charles Queen. Bizygotic twins, one meek and easily sated, the other fierce and somewhat sadistic. Nicky became a good friend and he and Damian seemed to fuel one another's defiance, making each other's time there nearly bearable.

Nicky, however, contracted a blood infection the next summer, out west. He did not die but suffered immensely. He returned more like his brother, handsome but now frail. Eventually he grew older through St. Mark's, shirked Princeton in favor of Harvard and smoked a pipe. He and Damian wrote one another when the later set off for the Middle East but the correspondence died in its second year.

Damian moved almost uneventfully through Andover but did not return for his final term, opting to move to Lawrenceville. Father'd merely peered at him over the papers on his desk, his faithful secretary Sarah ticking emotionlessly at the Corona to his left, "I see. That's…disappointing."

Every year father wore his class ring and attended the Andover-Exeter game, one of his few admissions of nostalgia outside of his nightlife. Damian was perpetually relegated to the nosebleed seats. Timothy Drake Wayne sat at Bruce's side.

Damian hated "Drake" for his unswerving ability to mirror father's expectations perfectly though he was loathe to admit it. Where Damian had seemed to inherit only his father's more insufferable traits, the holiness, the arrogance, the obsessions, Tim was quieter, more measured, equally obsessed but more understanding. And Tim wasn't even Bruce's biological child. But Damian didn't relish that awful business with the Joker and he did not savor Drake's suicide attempt or his having to relinquish the role of Robin. But father would not allow him to come home and step into the void. It felt like banishment.

Father did not attend Damian's graduation and he wandered numbly along the empty corridors while the grounds outside throbbed and shouted happily with young men and their families, carting trunks to cars and tossing motorboards. He hadn't expected his mother to come given their estrangement but his father…

He found himself walking indeterminately through the woods, crying and cursing himself, "G*ddamit Wayne, he's not here, do _not_ care. All you give are f*cks and…and what…?"

He'd been unable to find an answer. Grayson and Pennyworth were waiting at the dormitory with a glass of sparkling cider for him. Grayson was jovial, naturally, "I looked all over for you. Didn't you hear us whooping and hollering? Babs and Stephanie are around here somewhere…"

Damian had pressed his fingertips against his eyelids and didn't respond, his throat a useless coil of muscles.

Grayson's face fell and he braced the boy by the shoulder, "Hey, come on kid. I know it's crap but he missed my graduation too."

They all piled into the cab and Stephanie kissed him on the cheek by way of congratulations. Another long train ride. Another return to the great, empty house. Alfred made him his favorite meal, flaked egg with sauce and a bottle of Soder.

Damian refused Columbia in favor of Cambridge but was sent down after his second year for lack of attention to his studies. Thereafter he traveled through Jordan, Egypt, Greece, Syria and Iran. He stayed at the Red Apartment in Marrakesh with his father's former protégé Cassandra Cain and developed a haunting crush but she rebuked him. She was seeking a life of her own and did not have any interest in being bogged down with her adoptive father's son or his abandonment issues.

He hadn't guessed they were siblings and too like Drake shunned her by way of salving his grief. He returned to London and found young Oliver working at the Royal Bank of Scotland. They had lunch and later dinner and he found the old fellow was suddenly far more interesting than he'd ever been as a child.

Young Ollie was well-mannered and still shy and had a lisp. He blushed at the waiter and let Damian order for them both. In the evenings he saw some of the well-to-do girls and took them to the theatre and Damian scoffed, disinterested.

Ollie thought he had a future with a young lady currently housed at the May of Teck Club, known as a home for girls of a certain background whose means were otherwise diminished. In other words, she had nary but a penny to her name and was obliged to work as an office girl at RBS. Gossip being what it was, they saw others but had their eyes on marriage.

Damian was thoroughly bored but for one distinct detail, it seemed Ollie paid little mind toward the girls he was leading on. That left Damian to pick through them at his leisure. He lost his virginity and then some within weeks.

And there was a small scandal after he was discovered in a young lady's rooms by her father. The man was old-fashioned and insisted on a fistfight. Damian gave him one and promptly sailed for Cape Town before the blood dried.

Father sent him letters of introduction and they spoke on the telephone perhaps once a month but that slowly dissolved. Pennyworth died, then eventually grandfather followed and mother summoned him home and he visited once but afterward declined, finding her…different.

And ten years passed, and father was…ill. Drake contacted him, declining to go into the details over the phone. Drake had inherited the company in his stead but had stepped down, humiliated at being unable to stave off Derek Powers' eventual takeover. Damian hadn't followed the news much but knew that there must have been some sort of resulting strain. Still, he'd resolved not to rub it in, not to…what?

He wasn't sure as he'd left the airport and ridden the seven forty-five to Bristol's tiny station, hiring a cab the rest of the way. The house was in decrepit shape. Nearly a mausoleum, missing equal parts warmth and care.

Now he stood in the kitchen, imagining meddlesome, well-meaning Pennyworth at meals past. He guessed Selina was long gone by the sight of the place. And he knew Grayson kept his distance out of sheer awkwardness if nothing else. Barbara had carved her own niche and simply outlasted her old mentor in terms of staying power. Stephanie and Cassandra were elsewhere. And now there was…some whelp he'd heard little about through Drake.

None of the children had met him but apparently father had taken yet another wayward soul under his wing. But that he might do the same for his _own_ boy…

Damian gritted his teeth and left his trunks—ancient Louis Vuitton, they'd once belonged to Solomon—in the service entrance and tipped the cab driver. He shut the inside door and started up the servants' stairs, slowly, quieting his footsteps as Grayson had taught him.

He ran his hand along the stair's banister, withdrawing it at the sight of dust, thick and wafting toward the floor. He dusted his hands together and continued.

Father's rooms were on the second floor to the left. They consisted of the main suite, a dressing room and the bath. One door led to the dressing room the other, double doors led to the suite. He tried these and pushed them open. Gone was the ancient mahogany bed with the heavy curtains, in its place was some flat, uninspiring modern thing with long drawers and a shelf where the headboard ought to be. The radiators had been removed and large windows took up the entire far wall.

But that did not concern him as much as it could have. Or would have if his father wasn't lying prone in the middle of the room. In the old days, father would have acknowledged his presence immediately. He had never been remotely comforting or kind, always matter of fact. _I'll feed, clothe and provide for you because you are mine_. There was no…affection. Grayson had guessed once that Bruce was standoffish because of fear. Damian had found that preposterous, his father didn't know the meaning of fear.

Grayson had shaken his head, fear of his mother Talia. That had stumped the lad who'd always been raised to believe his conception was the logical and expected conclusion to a passionate, drawn out affair. Not so, he later learned, but it meant little to him. He simply wanted…what? Again the answer eluded him.

"Damian."

It wasn't a question and he felt like a child again, sucking in his breath, unprepared to hear that voice again after so long.

"Father?"

"So, Tim wired you?"

"He did."

Father's eyes weren't open and he didn't guess how the older man knew, but he did, "If you're staying, you'll find your bedroom the way you left it. I'll be…fine."

"I don't believe you."

"You can go now…I need…rest."

"I've never seen you…asleep."

"It doesn't come easily and still won't…if you insist on talking."

Damian frowned, his cheeks reddening, he wasn't sure what he expected but it was not this, "I'll be down the hall."

"There's a boy coming later, Terry. Don't confront him, he's…welcome."

So that was his name, Terry, "Yes sir."

"There's food, the doctor will be by tonight. I'm not to be disturbed beforehand."

"No father."

He thought he heard Bruce scoff, "You were usually far more…excitable. Don't tell me South Africa has chastened you."

Damian ran a hand over his head, "It's just…you don't look well."

The reply was brusque, "I'm not. But I will be."

"Yes father."

"Go out now."

"Yes father," and Damian did go out and he walked down the main stair and out the front door. He kept walking out along the grounds, past the abandoned watchman's cottage before he took up wait near the main gate. He would see this boy, this "Terry" and measure him. There had been sightings of the Batman throughout the city for the last year after what had been a decades- long hiatus. It didn't take much to put two and two together.

He would honor his father's wishes and leave the cowl alone, but he had to know, what right did this…_pissant_ have? Was he, in Damian's eyes, even worthy? And, if so, why?

He would wait and see.


	2. Chapter 2

He blinked, having fallen asleep there in a pile of leaves. His body stirred, aching in the damp there against the stone of the gateway. There were no sounds, only softness of light and a pale purple sky. In his youth, at dusk, the sky had burned orange and red.

He stood up and didn't bother to shake the muck from the back of his blazer, Paul Stuart, serge blue, ruined but certainly salvageable, if not for him then others. His mother would have set her jaw if he'd considered giving to the poor in her presence.

He'd waited for the boy, guessing that Terry was across town, throbbing and writhing with the other teenagers. That's what they did wasn't it? In his day dancing was as close as one could hope to get to sex, at first… He guessed these days it was merely a prelude. Then again, after a certain point, his late adolescence could certainly have been described as "misspent."

He crushed an ant, feeling its teensy legs tickling his neck suddenly, jabbing his hand into his collar and pulling out the bisected dots and lines that had once made up a body. He realized it was the first thing he'd killed in years.

In the house he washed his hands and took out a traveling tea kit he'd always liked to keep near, at least since London. The tea, however, was Chinese. He tossed the blazer on the kitchen floor and sat at the big table and drank and waited. Eventually the doctor came and he let him in and escorted him up and waited and took him back down. At the door the doctor shook his head, "These…gangs. What they wouldn't do to a grandmother, a grandfather."

Damian had nodded, "Are there any instructions for his care that I should be made aware of doctor?"

"Make sure he takes that medicine; don't let him sneak the pills into the waste basket as he did yesterday…Goodness, as though he should _want_ to die."

Damian was dismayed, contrary to somewhat popular belief, he knew damned well his father wasn't suicidal…or rather, he hadn't been, "Thank you doctor, shall I see you out?"

"No need… you're that boy of his."

"Yes."

"You might have come sooner."

Damian's brow lowered, "That isn't your concern."

"He needs encouragement. Proud man like your father…in his own _home_ this happened…"

Damian nodded and opened the door, curtly, "I'll look after him. Thank you doctor."

He shut the door and took his trunks upstairs one by one. He didn't place them in what had been his bedroom; instead he put them in an unoccupied room and set about changing the linens and gathering towels and toiletries. He had his bath and took out a leather strop and sharpened the razor and shaved the day-old beard. Afterward he cursed aloud and wished he'd brought his valet and had to iron himself and dressed for dinner.

There was no dinner here he guessed. Lord only knew what father had been eating but more than likely the boy doubled as a sort of all around servant, a batman in the old sense. He smirked at that and fetched a pair of military brushes, going over his hair once, then twice.

One pair of conspicuously shined shoes later he leaned into the door at father's end of the hall, "May I borrow the cufflinks?"

Father's breathing was shallow.

Concerned he entered the room and approached the bed, the breaths were not labored…meditation, "Father."

His father's eyes opened somewhat blearily in the dim light of the hall, "You're dressed."

Damian smirked again, "I'm off to the Pereginator's Club. I thought I might check on you."

Father studied him now, far more intently than he had that afternoon, "You've grown, even since twenty-one. Two—three inches."

"Yes father. Do you have the ones with the K for 'Kane?' I thought if I ran into Katherine and Reneé that they might get a sort of chuckle out of them, tenuous as our connection is at this point, by blood or background or…companionship."

Damian felt father's interest being roused, well aware that there was some muddled history that as yet went unexplained. Father and Katherine were fourth cousins and had dated, if one could call it that, while they were both still in prep school. Damian didn't think there was much to it but he enjoyed ruffling what little he could of his father's feathers, "I won't be gone long, I promise. An hour, two at most. Shall I bring you the house soup?"

Father nodded, sitting up slowly for him, even at his age and Damian propped up a pair of pillows behind him. They hadn't mentioned the holiday coming up though it was on both their minds he guessed, "I'll stay through New Years, I suppose."

Bruce grimaced, unpleasant to the last, "Shall I have Terry unpack your stocking?"

Damian blinked, remembering just how uncomfortable it sometimes felt to be in the man's presence, "I don't suppose it would hurt. Though I'd hardly count myself amongst the Christians."

"We are of the same mind," Bruce concurred drily.

Damian stood up and smoothed out an imaginary ruffle in his dress shirt, removing a stray down feather from the jacket sleeve, "If I can fetch a book or two from the library, I wouldn't mind, I'm going that way anyhow."

"You're dawdling."

Damian gave a deep sigh, "I thought if I was older this would be easier, that I wouldn't…" he looked him full on, "want you to at least…ah, blast it," he glanced now at his watch, "I'll be back at nine o'clock. Evening father."

He felt those eyes on his back and disappeared down the hall. At any other point he might have stayed out through dawn but father looked…peaky. And he wanted to see the boy after all.

But of course, at the club he dawdled too.

***

The boy sat at the kitchen table, devouring a bowl of corn flakes, giving him weary glances every so often. He talked with his mouth full often, "So, you're that kid of his, huh?"

Damian removed the stove lid and checked the fire before he commenced with frying an egg and blood sausage in a pan, "Of course."

"Can't believe you can use that crazy thing. Like something out of the stone age."

"It's a simple wood and coal range. Any imbecile could light if he gave any thought to it."

The boy drained the milk and ate the wet flakes greedily, "Where've you been?"

Damian took out a spatula and turned the egg, "Traveling, I went away and I did not come back."

"Yeah, I can see that." His tone however was not mocking and that fact caught Damian's attention.

"What of it?"

He could feel rather than see Terry shrugging, "I mean he's…he's the old man. It would probably kill him to admit a guy ever did anything right, God knows. I can see why you stay away. It's hard to put into words."

Damian took down a plate and moved to retrieve a carafe of orange juice from the refrigerator, "Yes it is."

They ate in silence now and Damian chanced to look the boy in the eyes, allowing himself to absorb the second half of Drake's letter more fully now that Terry was there before him.

Apparently father had some…misgivings about Terry's appearance, namely those eyes…

Damian imagined he knew them well enough, or ought to, as he possessed his own pair. According to Drake, Bruce was exploring the possibility that Terry might be related to him somehow. Not as a Kane, which might have made sense, given their financially—if not socially—diminished position, but as a Wayne. The boy did not know, and Damian felt that it was perhaps best that he never find out, at least if it was true.

Bruce had been a father to many, but was not necessarily a very good, if effective one.

He cleared his plate and left the orange juice standing. This time of day, Bruce was apt to be in the winter garden having his breakfast. Given Terry's reluctance to employ the stove he guessed the meal was carry-out of some sort. He found his father sitting up in a high backed chair with a blanket over his legs, a tray of half-eaten egg whites, two thin slices of ham and a glass of tomato juice at his side.

Father crossed his hands in his lap as Damian neared, "Good morning. It's come to my attention that you spent the night flirting and carousing."

Damian scratched his hairline and frowned, "I would hardly refer to a stiff waltz as carousing."

"With Kitrina Falcone."

"Is that her name?"

"If Bunny Vreeland is to be believed, you're the town gossip in twelve hours. I might be impressed."

"But you aren't, of course."

Bruce scowled, "You're grown, you make your own choices but I want my displeasure duly noted. There are innumerable girls in Bristol if you're interested in pursuing some sort of attachment, she should not be one of them."

"Pray tell, why?"

"Does that last name sound familiar?"

Damian squinted momentarily, "_Those_ Falcones."

Bruce nodded, "The same. Scoundrels all."

Damian scoffed, "Not all it would seem."

"What does that mean?"

Damian caught his tongue; his respect for his father wouldn't permit him to refer to her as such in his presence, even if it was true, "What of Miss Kyle? Am I mistaken in pegging her as one of _those_ Falcones?"

"Is that what Kitrina said?"

Damian nodded, "Only that she hadn't been in Gotham longer than a year. That it was hard to visit for much longer than the season after her sister's death."

He didn't miss that slight tint in his father's cheeks, "How long has it been father?"

"…Nearly six years."

He didn't waste time with condolences, "If it's any consolation, I'm not serious. I never have been. Not yet, but you don't need me to carry on the line do you? Not when you've got spares here and there."

Bruce shifted in the chair, annoyed at convalescence of any sort, "I'm not sure what you mean by that."

Damian looked through the evergreens and the glass at the blurred, dark outline of the house proper, "Drake provided me with a lot to consider in his letter. I would much rather speak plainly."

"Then do so."

"That boy in there. It's my understanding that he may be my, well, brother."

"Not naturally."

"How else might one gain a brother?"

Bruce looked up at him, as if genuinely concerned, perhaps worried, "I suppose you'll want to know why I've allowed him to continue despite my…concerns."

"That might be a nice place to start."

"Sit down Damian."

The man did as he was told and waited.

Bruce brought his hand to his brow, "All your life you've wondered why I wouldn't allow you to follow my example. To pick up my mantle as it were. But I don't want that for you, nor will I allow it as long as I'm able. It would be no more of a positive manifestation of my own hopes for you as theirs."

Damian knew he was referring to grandfather and mother and their hopes that he would unite the former's megalomaniacal ambition with the limitless resources and sheer ability of the Batman. Thankfully, that would never come to pass.

"I want you to be more than I was, to have more. They raised you to believe your only use in this life was to further their—or rather, his goals. I sought to prove otherwise, even at the expense of our…relationship, what little there is. If fostering your independence has severed our ties then so be it. If what I suspect is true, I only regret that I could not do the same for Terry. It is too late and he…feels that he needs this outlet. That is unfortunate. I do not want the same burdens for my sons, but that more than a few meddling geneticists had realized that sooner. If your mother had thought more of you than Ra's…"

Damian stared at him, somewhat taken aback, "What then? What can I do? How may I serve your cause father? That's what I've wanted as long as I can remember."

Bruce sat up, "My capacity to monitor, to guide Terry has been stunted due to the toxins in the Joker's gas. I was too long without the antidote and my heart is…Let us say I may not be long for this mortal coil."

Damian sat up straight, "How long?"

"I couldn't say. I'm not on my deathbed yet, but I might say this experience has taken another ten years from me, if I had that long to begin with."

Damian gulped despite himself, "What shall I do?"

Father was silent for some time, "Terry will need to be looked after. I know your temperament and that he will try your patience in ways you might scarcely imagine. But, he will need you, perhaps in the same sense that you needed Dick."

"Will you ever tell him that you're, or rather, _if_ you're his father?"

"He's clever but it may never dawn on him. If it does, however, I will be honest, and if I'm…unavailable, I expect you to tell him. And Matthew."

"Who is Matthew?"

"His brother, he's…a child. Ten years old."

Damian stared down at the floor, "I remember being ten, and afraid, and defiant."

"I too."

"May I ask…when have you spoken to mother last?"

Bruce grimaced, his son did not know that she was…but how could he tell him something like that? Something so…brutal? "Not for a long time yet. I've found it very hard to forgive her."

"Forgive what?"

Bruce sighed, "I told you Damian, I will not have you suffer my burdens. I did love your mother, but that is all in the past and there isn't much to add…you may go now."

Damian frowned, unprepared to hear so much at once, "Yes father."

"Will you see Miss Falcone again?"

"No father."

"I…would appreciate that."

**Epilogue**

Damian sat at his desk, spinning a ballpoint pen, listening to Drake rattle on monotonously about next year's projections. He would much rather be home preparing for the night, warming up the Crays, checking last night's lab samples, so on and so forth.

Unfortunately, Drake insisted he do more than his fair share to earn the shareholders' trust, after all, it was _his_ name and after the much lauded split with Paxton Powers, he ought to do more to care for it.

He also wanted to see his wife before retiring to the cave, and Elisabeth was taking the brunt of the twins' teething almost entirely on her own. Phineas and Nyssa were rather a handful.

"_Damian_? Are you even listening?"

He smirked, as was his habit, and tossed the pen aside, "Now Drake, of course not. But you knew that."

Timothy's shoulders sank and he gave a heavy sigh, "I'll messenger these to the manor tomorrow. Please study them, or at least _look_ at them before the annual…"

"Naturally," the younger man quipped, "Now, you shouldn't leave your wife waiting up…I don't like to leave mine."

"How is he doing?"

"The old Bat or the new brat?"

"I mean, how is the new knee working out?"

"As well as can be expected all things considered. If you'll stop by you'll see for yourself."

Timothy scratched the back of his head, still unsure, still smarting at being pushed aside as Bruce's primary caregiver these last few years, still uncomfortable in either Damian's or Terry's presence.

They were, perhaps, a bit too much like those bionic parts everyone seemed so fond of…out with the old and in with the mildly patronizing or at least, in Terry's case, exceptionally smart-mouthed.

Timothy nodded to himself, chancing to ask, "Don't you ever want to tell him?"

Damian shrugged on his coat, "No."

"Biologically speaking, shouldn't he know?"

Damian made a face, "Father's mission takes…precedence over any wayward feelings. If anything our bit of collusion beats so-called blood any day…doesn't it Drake?"

Timothy stood straight, surprised. After a beat he agreed, supposing that it did indeed.


End file.
